Naturopathy >>>> What do salt caves treat?

What do salt caves treat?

The "speleotherapy" procedure, which is popular in mountain resorts, raises many questions about its effectiveness, since not everyone understands the healing aspects of speleotherapy.

Speleotherapy has appeared as an alternative to spa treatment with sea air, which has a beneficial effect on the general condition of the body of people prone to respiratory diseases. The high concentration of salts in seawater and their active evaporation create conditions that facilitate breathing in people with breathing problems.

In regions remote from the sea coast, caves were discovered in which the ecosystem, thanks to the salt deposits that emerge on the surface of the cave walls, created a microclimate similar in composition to the atmosphere of the sea coast. This led to the idea of using this kind of caves for a therapeutic effect on the respiratory organs. The procedure was named speleotherapy from the word “speleo” (Greek) - “cave”.

The air in such unique natural formations is oversaturated with iodine vapors and salt aerosol formed by small crystals of salt and water droplets, which at a certain temperature regime are detached from the salt deposits.

But due to the remote location of such unique caves from resorts and medical boarding houses, a man-made system of treatment was invented, called halotherapy from the word "halite" (Greek) - "salt", using halochambers - almost hermetically sealed rooms, the walls of which are lined with salt blocks extracted from salt mines or deposits of unique salt caves. When creating halochambers, we tried to bring their atmosphere as close as possible to natural conditions.

What do salt caves treat? The essence of the speleotherapy (halotherapy) procedure consists in a long (many hours) presence of a person in an atmosphere of active vapors of saline aerosol and inhalation of air with a high saline concentration.

When they talk about speleotherapy, they mean a procedure that takes place directly in a natural salt cave or in places of development - salt mines, but when they talk about halotherapy - they mean that this procedure will be carried out in a halochamber.

Speleo or halotherapy aims to improve the general health of people with breathing problems, chronic bronchitis, pre-asthma conditions, frequent respiratory infections, pneumoconiosis. Salt aerosols play the role of an absorbent, mucolytic, regulator of osmotic pressure in tissues, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory agent - in general, they improve the quality of inhaled air. Saline aerosol, moving along the respiratory tract, is able to relieve swelling, spasms of the walls of the bronchial tree.

But there are contraindications to speleotherapy (halotherapy) procedures. For people with a severe allergic reaction of the respiratory tract, with asthma attacks, in the midst of acute bronchitis, with the disease of tuberculosis, treatment with saline aerosols is contraindicated, since it can aggravate the course of the underlying disease, which caused breathing difficulties. Heart failure, pulmonary failure do not imply speleotherapy in various forms of its manifestation. Side effects from visiting salt caves and artificial salt mines can be the development of a cough syndrome. In such cases, therapy with saline aerosols should be discontinued.